The dismal science


"The dismal science" is a derogatory alternative name for economics coined by the Victorian historian Thomas Carlyle in the 19th century. The term drew a contrast with the then-familiar use of the phrase "gay science" to refer to song and verse writing. Some modern synonyms include the term "the miserable science".

Origin

The phrase "the dismal science" first occurs in Thomas Carlyle's 1849 tract called Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question, in which he argued in favor of reintroducing slavery in order to restore productivity to the West Indies:
It was "dismal" in "find the secret of this Universe in 'supply and demand', and reducing the duty of human governors to that of letting men alone". Instead, the "idle Black man in the West Indies" should be "compelled to work as he was fit, and to do the Maker's will who had constructed him".
Carlyle's view was attacked by John Stuart Mill as making a virtue of toil itself, stunting the development of the weak, and committing the "vulgar error of imputing every difference which he finds among human beings to an original difference of nature".
Note that Carlyle did not originally coin the phrase "dismal science" as a response to the economically-influential theories of Thomas Malthus, who predicted that starvation would inevitably result as projected population growth exceeded the rate of increase in the food supply. However, Carlyle did earlier use the word "dismal" in relation to Malthus' theory in Chartism :

Beyond Carlyle

Many at the time and afterward have understood the phrase in relation to the grim predictions drawn from the principles of 19th century "political economy". According to Humphry House:
In modern terms, the phrase is sometimes referenced by synonymous terms like "the miserable science", as shown in this quote by E.W. Dijkstra:
As economics is known as "The Miserable Science", software engineering should be known as "The Doomed Discipline"